Position in chronology
Nisaba 25, 63
About this tablet
An Early Dynastic administrative tablet excavated at Ur (excavation number U.18386, now in the British Museum), roughly 2600–2400 BCE. It is a land or allocation account: quantities — probably measures of field area — are booked against high-ranking people, including the ruler (ensi) of Ur himself, a 'lady' (perhaps a queen or goddess), and other named individuals, then summed as roughly 155 units of cultivated, plowed field. It is a rare glimpse of how the very top of Ur's society held or received land nearly a millennium before the famous Ur III bureaucracy.
Plain-language summary by the engine — meant as a doorway into the literal translation below.
Written in modern English
This is a land ledger. Someone tallied out parcels: 3 to a name now lost, 2 to the governor of Ur, 25 to Lu-dugin, about 8 to the lady, at least 2 to Amar-e — then a damaged entry about property or an assignment — then 30 to the governor of another town, 12 more to the governor of Ur, and 10 to the 'woman of the statue.' All of this was received, and the bottom line totals it up: 155 units of cultivated, plowed field. The end of the total line is broken away.
A modern paraphrase of the literal translation — same content, contemporary voice.
Translation — our engine
Our engine(obverse) 3 [+ ...] — [...] 2 — the ruler (ensi) of Ur, 25 — Lu-dugin, 8(?) — the lady (nin), [n +] 2 — Amar-e, ... property/assignment(?) (NIG2 nam), 3 tens (30) — the ruler (ensi) of ...(a place written with an archaic sign + KI), 1 ten 2 (12) — the ruler (ensi) of Ur, 1 ten (10) — the "woman of the statue" (munus-alan-ak); received (IL2). (reverse / total) 2 sixties 3 tens 5 (= 155) — cultivated field(s), plow, ... [...] (remainder broken)
Our translation engine — Fable 5. Reads the photo, translates the cuneiform, and writes a plain-language interpretation. See methodology for limits.
Spotted an error? Suggest a correction — confirmed corrections feed the engine's knowledge base.
Transliteration
3(N01@f)# [...] 2(N01@f) , ensix(|PA.SI|)-uri5 2(N14@f) 5(N01@f) , lu2-dugin2 8(N01@f)#? , nin [n] 2(N01@f)# , amar-e2 NIG2# nam#? 3(N14@f) , ensix(|PA.SI|)-|UET2_161b+KI|#? 1(N14@f) 2(N01@f) , ensix(|PA.SI|)#-uri5# 1(N14@f) , munus-alan#-ak IL2 2(N34@f) 3(N14@f) 5(N01@f) , GAN2# du3 APIN ISZ# [...]
Scholarly note
Catalogue entry from CDLI (ED I-II (ca. 2900-2700 BC)) — Nisaba 25, 63. No scholarly translation has been published; the transliteration is from the ATF (CDLI's Atf-Friendly format).
Attribution
Image: British Museum, London, UK (P449050) — Photo via Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. source
Translation excerpted from engine:claude-fable-5 (2026-07-12/v7-evolved).
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Related sources
One of the earliest specimens of human writing. Not literature, not law — accounting. The need to keep track of grain in a temple bureaucracy is what pushed marks-on-clay into a system that could one day carry epics.
A window into the world's first total state. The Ur III administration tracked every animal, every worker, every shekel — for a population in the millions. The level of paperwork was not exceeded until the modern era.